15 Qualities of A Great Team Member

When you are part of a great team, going to work in the morning feels joyous and exciting. There is a special feeling when your teammates are working towards the same goal as you – you’re able to share in the camaraderie of the journey, as well as the achievements.

Through synergy, a good team is able to create an end result far outweighing what each individual could produce themselves. However, in order to create a good team, it’s essential that you pick the right members.

Some skillsets and personalities types naturally gel well with one another, whereas other combinations will create a truly catastrophic atmosphere in any workplace. Unfortunately, no amount of technical proficiency can make up for a failed team dynamic!

While you’ll want to screen for specific traits based on your industry and company culture, if you can find a team member who has a handful (or preferably all) of the following traits, never let them go!

1. Self-Aware

In order to be a great team player, it’s crucial to have an unbiased awareness of what you’re good at and what you suck at. As a legendary entrepreneur and YouTube star, Gary Vaynerchuk, says: “Self-awareness is being able to accept your weaknesses while focusing all of your attention on your strengths.”

In the modern era, we’re conditioned into improving our weaknesses rather than doubling down on our strengths. When you follow this path, it’s hard to rise above mediocrity.

However, when you’re brutally honest about your weaknesses, you can finally accept them and hone other skills that will make you extremely valuable to your employer.

Teams benefit when individual members are fully aware of their strengths and weaknesses, but it’s especially important that leaders understand the key attributes of their subordinates. Good leaders know how to delegate effectively, while bad leaders give the inappropriate work to the wrong workers.

If you’re a good copywriter, you might excel at crafting thoughtful words in solitude, but perform badly when forced to interact with clients face-to-face. Likewise, a good salesman can easily build rapport with prospective clients, but they might not be good at producing well-researched blog posts for the company’s website.

With this in mind, if you read most job descriptions, you could come to the conclusion that companies are only looking for outrageously extroverted salesmen – for every single role!

Valuable team members should be experts in their chosen disciplines – they shouldn’t be expected to switch roles with one another when there isn’t a major overlap in competencies.

For the same reason that Hightower plays as a linebacker and Brady plays as a quarterback, putting individuals in roles where they can fully utilize their talents is essential if you want your team to function optimally.

2. Committed to Mastery

If you’re content to let your skills stagnate, then you will never fulfill your potential as a team member in any organization. This is particularly crucial in the Information Age, where industries are changing rapidly and certain skill sets are becoming obsolete overnight.

As Robert Greene, author of Mastery, states: “The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.” Great team members make time in their weekly schedule for refining their talents and adding new ticks to their repertoires.

When every member of the team in committed to personal growth, this not only creates an awesome working atmosphere, but it constantly brings new information into the organization which assists creative problem-solving.

Mindvalley, a company known for its progressive workplace culture, actually instructs its employees to spend 5 hours of their working week on personal development tasks such as reading a book or learning a new skill. When team members are honing their skills and undertaking personal growth challenges, teamwork will naturally flourish.

3. Intrinsically Motivated

Most employees are heavily motivated by financial gain. This isn’t good or bad, it’s just an economic reality.

This elephant in the room is apparent to both employers and new candidates when that popular interview question is asked: “So, what attracted you to this role?”

There is nothing wrong with doing a job for money, but if you’re doing it only for money – then you’ll never be a great team member.

Anyone who has achieved a level of mastery at a skill appreciates the daily ritual of practice. This intrinsic motivation should fire you to turn up day in, day out, irrespective of the accolades. It’s very difficult to be enthusiastic about something when extrinsic motivations like money, fame, and praise are all that you have.

If you’re not intrinsically motivated to perform the daily tasks in your vocation, you’re either in an environment where your talents are not being maximized, or you’re in the wrong vocation. In both cases, you need to make a change – immediately!

Most people have experienced the poisonous atmosphere of working with a team of depressed wage slaves – it’s no fun at all. Conversely, when your teammates are passionate about their disciplines and intrinsically motivated, the positivity is infectious.

4. Reliable

While most employers prioritize personality traits over skills to a preposterous extent, reliability is something that every employer should screen for. Even if a person has a phenomenal skill set, if they’re wishy washy and don’t follow through on their promises, then they’re not a good team player.

Although reliability is considered to be a fixed trait, environmental factors also impact the reliability of employees. For instance, if a team member strives to do their best, but their boss gives them no praise and constantly takes credit for the work – this individual will certainly become less reliable.

If a person’s working environment reinforces that reliability is not rewarded, then it’s much more difficult to behave reliably – even if you’re reliable in every other area of your life.

Oftentimes, workers can be extremely reliable when they’re allowed to work remotely on a schedule that aligns with their personality and biology, but can seriously underperform when they’re hurled into an open-plan office with no privacy and abundant distractions.

If you want to make a meaningful contribution, it’s important to find a company that respects your individuality and will allow you to work in a style that maximizes your potential.

5. Honest

A team member should be honest about their achievements as well as their shortcomings. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but when people try to shift the blame and weave false narratives, disasters can occur.

Entrepreneur and author, James Altucher, once said: “Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure.”

Bad news can be difficult to handle, but the sooner you embrace the truth, the faster you can innovate and come to a solution. Being honest doesn’t mean being brazen – you can deliver constructive criticisms tactfully without hurting anyone’s feelings.

When you’re dealing with an honest person, you know where you stand with them. You don’t have to worry about them spinning narratives in order to achieve a certain agenda, they just say it as it is.

When rapport is based on authenticity rather than falsehood, this creates deeper relationships. When team members relate to one another better, they also produce greater results for the organization.

6. Positive

Being positive doesn’t mean behaving like Barney the Dinosaur, singing gleeful songs to your colleagues and exchanging hugs every day. Positivity isn’t about how smiley and talkative you are – it’s a mindset. You can be positive in a low-key manner and still have a wonderful impact on your teammates.

When you’re conscious about staying positive, you’ll see failure as feedback rather than a cataclysmic disaster. Positivity means finding a solution to a problem rather than passing the blame and dwelling on things you can’t control.

Research shows that positive employees are 12% more productive. Additionally, when you’re happy, you make better decisions, feel healthier and make your colleagues happier (and more productive) too.

In the field of sales, the “Law of State Transfer” can be leveraged in order to make prospects feel happier and excited, which improves their chances of purchasing. Put simply, whatever emotional state you’re feeling will rub off on whoever you’re talking to. This law applies to interacting with colleagues as well as sales prospects.

State transference is accentuated when you’re in a higher status position to the person you’re talking to. For this reason, team leaders need to stay extra vigilant in remaining positive, since their emotional state is likely to rub off on their subordinates to a significant extent.

Most people have felt their motivation decline when working for a boss who micromanages, uses hostile language and takes credit for the team’s work. In a 2015 survey, 50% of employees stated that they’d left a job in the past because of a bad manager. Don’t let this be you!

7. Empathic

Have you ever heard the adage: “Treat people how they want to be treated”? This is atrocious advice.

Here is a much better tip: treat people how you want to be treated.

Empathy is about being aware of how other people feel. If you’re unable to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see things from their viewpoint, people are not going to enjoy working with you.

Sure, employees of the Patrick Bateman variety can get ahead by manipulating and exploiting those around them, but more often than not, this creates resentment which eventually leads to the person’s downfall.

Fortunately, empathy isn’t a fixed attribute – it’s something you can improve. Learning how to listen to your colleagues and assess their mood based on their sub-communications will make you a much better team player.

If a colleague has donned headphones and is exhibiting closed body language, they’re probably doing some serious work and it’s better to not disturb them – even if chocolates are being passed around the office and you don’t want them to miss out!

When you respect people’s boundaries and embrace their individuality (even if you don’t always agree with them), people will enjoy working with you.

8. Good Communicator

It’s impossible to work together as a team if individual members don’t fully understand one another. Communication skills are imperative for anyone working in a team environment.

Arguably the most important communication skill is knowing how to give tactful, constructive criticism. While you might be voicing a criticism for the purpose of driving the team forward and solving a problem, if you’re not careful, the person on the receiving end may view it as a personal attack.

By showing appreciation for what the person did well, and then explaining what they could have done better, this creates a positive framework for the criticism and will lead to a much more positive outcome.
In terms of delivering criticisms, there are cultural aspects to consider. What’s considered as direct communication in Holland might be considered as a social faux pas in England, so be sure your style of communication reflects the culture of your country, as well as the culture of your company.

Being a good communicator also means knowing when to stay silent. Oftentimes, if you don’t have an insightful comment that will drive the discussion forward, it’s better to say nothing. Good listeners don’t receive the same formal recognition as good talkers, but they’re just as valuable to a team.

9. Confident

Most people would associate confidence with someone like Anthony Robbins: bold, effervescent and commanding. However, you don’t need to be a consummate extrovert to have a deep belief in your inherent worth and abilities.

People prefer to work with confident (not arrogant) teammates for a number of reasons.
When you have a positive self-image, you’re less inclined to engage in passive aggressive behavior and gossip (which primarily serves as a short-term self-esteem boost). Confident people prefer to give compliments that make people feel better, rather than slander their colleagues. Also, confident people aren’t as emotionally reactive to failure and criticism. While an insecure person may view constructive criticism as a personal attack, a confident person will view the same information as feedback that they can use to make improvements.

Being in a romantic relationship with someone who is insecure, needy and hungry for validation is no fun – the same applies to relationships with colleagues in the workplace!

10. Able to Multitask

In the modern era, employees rarely have the chance to focus on one project at a time. In most situations, employees are required to juggle a handful of tasks while rigidly adhering to deadlines. For this reason, multitasking is one of the most common traits that employers screen for in job interviews.

It’s no surprise that employees who are able to multitask effectively are always well organized. By sticking to a daily sleep and exercise routine, decluttering your desk regularly, writing down information that you can’t remember and creating a task list in the mornings for your work days, your ability to multitask will improve exponentially.

Naturally, procrastination is the antithesis of multitasking. If you’re avoiding tackling tasks when you’re supposed to be hard at work, this will negatively affect all the projects on your calendar when a backlog ensues.

By cutting off distractions such as email and phone notifications while you work, you’ll find it easier to overcome procrastination. Also, you may get better results by doing your least favorite tasks early in the morning and giving yourself small rewards for tasks completed. By striving for consistency instead of perfectionism, your productivity and ability to multitask will increase.

11. Detail-Oriented

Being detail-oriented doesn’t mean you’re incapable of grasping grand visions, it just means that you pay close attention to the small things. For instance, detail-oriented workers always meticulously proofread their work before submitting it. Imagine hiring an editor or copywriter that wasn’t detail-oriented!

Paying close attention to details means you recognize patterns that other people might be oblivious to. When something is out of place, you can depend on detail-oriented employees to notice. This is very helpful in terms of problem-solving, particularly if a creative solution is required.

Detail-oriented employees are great at reading body language and determining people’s intentions. Because of this, these individuals are likely to respect people’s boundaries and know when it’s appropriate to engage someone. Being detail-oriented not only results in a higher quality of work; it also entails better social skills.

12. Autonomous

Ego-driven managers love working with subordinates that they can control and dominate. Unfortunately, this is because they care more about feeling important than they care about the objectives of the organization. Micromanaging never produces good results for the company, but it can help certain managers to feel special temporarily.

For benevolent managers that are fully aligned with the companies that employ them, micromanaging is silly and unproductive. Good managers want dependable employees who they can assign a task to and know that it’ll be completed by the set deadline.

Sure, every now and then an employee might ask for clarification or help if they’ve hit a roadblock, but for the most part, a good employee will take the initiative and work autonomously to complete their objectives.

In order to perform better, many workers are seeking out remote working arrangements where they can function autonomously. In a 2013 workplace survey, it was found that employees who have a choice over when, where and how to work achieve higher levels of satisfaction, innovation, and job performance.

Companies don’t benefit from hiring employees that need constant coddling. In the adult world, employees who take the initiative and work autonomously produce the best results.

13. Adaptable

In this era of mass disruption, market shares can be lost overnight. In order survive and adapt, companies often have to change trajectories quickly. When this happens, employees also need to evolve in order to be useful.

Adaptability is a requirement for employees in this day and age. This comes down to a willingness to learn new information and pick up new skills.

Sometimes, employees might have to grow in ways that may not make sense based on their career goals, but instead for the greater good of the organization. For those who are calm under pressure and mature enough to prioritize the organization’s goals over their own – this makes them invaluable employees.

While flexible working practices are highly recommended to get the most out of employees, during urgent situations it’s important that the employees reciprocate. This might require working extra hours or grinding especially hard to get a project completed on time.

Adaptability also means being flexible to the working habits and personalities of your colleagues. If you’re collaborating with teammates who prefer to work remotely, you may need to learn how to use tools like Slack for video conferencing and Asana for managing projects.

If you’re outgoing and talkative, you may need to adapt to your introverted colleagues who require quiet environments in order to work productivity. If you’re naturally introverted, asking a few friendly questions here and there will help to build rapport with your outgoing colleagues.

14. Understands the Industry

Technical competency makes you a valuable asset to a team, but an understanding of the wider industry makes you irreplaceable. Keeping tabs on the industry shouldn’t just be a responsibility for the leadership team – everyone should have a keen interest in marketplace trends.

By reading industry periodicals and regularly checking what the competition is offering, you can help the company to stay on the right course and avoid being blindsided by new threats that no one else noticed.

In the NFL, the players with the highest “football IQ” don’t just practice drills pertaining to their position; they spend an inordinate amount of time studying tape on opposing teams for trend recognition. This allows them to decipher what the opponent is going to do and adjust course immediately, which can seem paranormal to those watching the game from the sidelines.

15. Persistent

As Winston Churchill once said: “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

When you embrace new challenges and refuse to give up after temporary setbacks, your chances of success increase exponentially. Fortune favors the brave, but only the persistently brave.

James Dyson created over 5,000 failed prototypes of a bagless vacuum cleaner before he was eventually successful. Even then, he had enormous challenges bringing the product to market, since this new product presented a threat for the manufacturers of vacuum bags.

After overcoming these obstacles, James Dyson’s net worth is over $4 billion. Interestingly, he only hires employees who believe that failure is good!

By keeping a positive attitude and persevering even when things aren’t going your way, this rubs off on your colleagues and creates a wonderfully productive workplace atmosphere.

Conclusion

When you’re working with a great team, every day can feel like an adventure. With a bad team, your office can quickly become a dungeon.

Choosing the right team members not only affects the atmosphere of your workplace, but it significantly impacts employee productivity – which determines the long-term profitability of the company.

11 Comments

None of the qualities listed above surprised me. In order to have a fully functioning team all qualities must be present. However, not every person within the team will have every quality listed and that is okay. A team is about working together and helping each other out. The team will be a mix of all types of people and hopefully each team member will have a variety of the listed qualities, so the team as a whole will have all of them. Thank you for this list!

I would have to agree with all of the traits of a good team member. I am sure everyone has come across some of these qualities or even most them when being put into groups. We develop these traits over time. We have been put into groups most of our lives. In some groups there are certain people that lack in some qualities , but make up in other areas. Some group members can be fully engaged more so than others. Teamwork is where people are lacking in a certain area but a group member makes up for it. Each person has a role in the group to play.

Nothing about Pope’s list was very surprising to me. Anyone who has worked as part of a team understands that numerous characteristics are needed in order to balance the team. All of the qualities Pope mentioned are necessary to create strong teams. Along with being a good communicator a person should be just as good at listening. We often miss what another person is saying because we are so focused on what we would like to say when they quit speaking. If I were to add anything to Pope’s list it would be trust and respect. If a person does not trust that their team mates are doing everything they can for the success of the team that might cause resentment. When every member respects the other members of the team as well as the work they do, that creates a more comfortable working environment for everyone. A team made with men and women of integrity, could not fail. It would be each person’s desire to put forth their very best in all situations for the benefit of the team.

Honestly none of these qualities for a successful team member surprised me. The qualities listed here are the same ones I have heard over and over in leadership training at work, school, and anytime the topic comes up. No one wants to be in a team with dishonest, selfish, lazy partners and no boss wants to hire them either.
I agree that these qualities are important for a successful team member. The only quality I can think of that I believe they left out is being a good listener. I agree with the poster above that being a good listener is also an excellent quality to have when working in a team atmosphere.

I think the quality that stood out most is being able to adapt, really challenges a member to be as versatile as possible. This is a great list of qualities, they are all essential so it is hard to put a quality above the other.

I am not surprised by the qualities listed and feel that they are all important for a quality, high functioning team, however I am shocked that none of the qualities listed didn’t state embrace your own weaknesses. Teamwork involves selecting the best person for each position that they are the best at. You do not want a English major teaching Math, that would be silly so arranging project tasks to highlight the best in each individual should be stated.

1. Although I do agree that self-awareness is an important characteristic to be a great team member, I definitely disagree with the quote for self-awareness. I do not think that self-awareness means to accept your weakness. ‘Acceptance’ implies a contentment with your current skill level, and a lack of desire to further develop your skill. I think self-awareness means to acknowledge your weaknesses and look for help from those who are strong in that area to learn from. I also don’t think that you should focus all of your attention on your strengths because you should also be putting forth effort to develop your weaknesses. Your goal is not to be the best at everything. It is become the best version of yourself, so that you can be an even better teammate. Doing otherwise seems to be the opposite of a growth mindset because you are approaching your weaknesses as if they cannot be changed, and should be accepted and given up on. I believe a team works best when each individual’s strengths are put in the forefront, but each person’s weaknesses are not left to become even worse. Great article. I enjoyed the read.

I was not surprised by most of the qualities on this list. I do feel that multitasking, though it can be of some value in some specific roles, does not necessarily produce the highest quality or highest volume of productivity. I do agree that multitasking requires organization, mind over matter, and a form of checks and balances/well kept calendar of events/projects.
I agree that all of these qualities are necessary for a strong team. It is highly important that everyone be able to work well together, communicate effectively, and have a sense of balance. If my strengths help to balance out the weaknesses of my peer and my peers strengths balance out my weaknesses, we together create one awesome unit.
The only quality I would add to this list truly can fall into empathy and communication, because the quality I would add, is being a good listener. A good listener pauses to hear out the ideas, goals, frustrations, and desires of their peers. A good listener helps to encourage, inspire, and motivate.

These qualities are a great representation of what a great team member should have. Many people don’t think about personal growth, or “Committed to Mastery”, as a benefit in teamwork, but it is almost essential. If a person has the desire to expand their knowledge and put in the effort to grow as an individual, then that same characteristic will be evident when acting in and with a team. Thanks for sharing!

I agree that all of these traits are necessary to be an effective team member! I was surprised by the intrinsic motivation, although it makes perfect sense. Someone who is only in it for the money or other external factors, would tend to be more on the selfish side, whereas someone who truly has a passion for what they do, will be more pleasant to work with. Perhaps another quality to include could be someone who is passionate about anything that they do. Someone passionate understands that while they may not know everything about the subject, they still find themselves completely submerged in the subject and will do anything to learn more.